We Interrupt This Scheduled Lesson For.....

Is there some kind of "hotline" for anonymously reporting P.A. system abuse? If there isn't, there should be. If such a "hotline" existed, my school would definitely be "red-flagged" by now. It seems like there is a freakin interrupt... err... um.. important announcement every damn minute. It is really unnerving (especially when I'm in a teaching groove, and my kids are in a learning groove). There has got to be a better way.

Whether they are:

• Looking for some AWOL teacher

"Ms. Black, please report to the office. Ms. Black, please
report to the office. You are needed immediately, Ms. Black. Ms.
Black, please report to the office. We are a go for Operation Black Hawk"

• Telling us stuff they should've told us in the weekly update newsletter

"Please have your students sign off on their free fair tickets for
elementary fair day."

or:
"The Fast Forword Lab will be closed today
and next week until further notice."

or:
"Duh, don't you read? The Fast
Forword Lab is open again."

• Telling us at 2:30 to send students down to the office or teacher workroom to get copies of "important" notes that must go home by the end of the day (when they should've had the copies ready first thing in the morning).
  

....They inevitably make the announcement longer than it should be and basically..... ruin the atmosphere of my classroom. If my students were engaged, you can sure bet they won't be engaged anymore. If they weren't engaged, you can sure bet they are even worse afterwords.

It is absolutely ridiculous. Maybe a script would help. Write it out before you ramble it out. One announcement in late September warned us faculty members about the approaching end of summer dress code, and that the men would now have to go back to neckties and the women would have to go back to hose. By the end of that convoluted exposition by my school leader, some of my 4th grade boys were convinced that they needed to show up with neckties the next week. The other 60% who have learned the important skill of "tuning out" were fine until they overheard me trying to "clear up the confusion" to the other 40%ers. After they overheard me trying to explain "no neckties" to the "confused" ones, their response was, "We have to wear neckties???"

It is truly a vicious cycle. Dominoes on the tumble. If one falls, they all fall.

And after all the confusion was finally cleared up, the dialogue kinda went like this....

40%ers: "By the way, Mr. Cater, what was that you were telling us about Left Angles?"

Mr. Cater: "I was talking about right angles. There is no such thing as a left angle."

60%ers: "There's a left angle? What does it look like?"

Mr. Cater: "It looks like a boot about to kick some ill-prepared elocutionist in the buttocks."